Fill vacancies in aided colleges, says ACTA

Aided College Teachers’ Organisation (ACTA) has appealed to the State government to promptly fill vacancies in aided colleges as promised months ago in order to benefit the student community from 2012-14 academic session.

The State must issue an order immediately in this regard and select eligible teachers through proper procedure, ACTA State secretary S.Manali Somasundaram said in a press release. He called for formation of a Joint Directorate to look after the welfare of teachers in constituent colleges of universities.

While there was encouraging patronage from rural students for the constituent colleges that are instrumental in enhancing the gross enrolment ratio in higher education, the teachers were working in pathetic conditions. The State government must make adequate allocation to accord permanency to their jobs, and universities have to treat them on par with teachers of government, aided and self-financing colleges for the purposes of paying them allowances for conducting practicals and taking part in valuation of answer scripts, Prof. Somasundaram said.

Welcoming the State government’s decision to take over Annamalai University to safeguard the interests of teachers, other employees and students, he said the timely move was appreciable.

The release invited the State government’s attention and sought its intervention to rectify the prevailing scenario in aided colleges where, it said, the infrastructure meant for aided courses was used on a priority basis for students admitted in self-financed programmes. Even job-oriented courses were being started only under self-financing stream, the release said. Prof. Somasundaram also urged the State government to comprehensively implement the UGC guidelines issued in 2006, particularly with respect to sanction of grade pay. The delay in sanctioning the grade pay at the offices of the Joint Directorates of Collegiate Education must be immediately addressed by the higher education department, the release said.